


Hair Like Autumn Leaves

by hallyuvian



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, University
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallyuvian/pseuds/hallyuvian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Margaery Tyrell meets Sansa Stark in her Introduction to Medieval Europe class, and is immediately drawn to her. She finds herself unable to stop thinking about Sansa over the next couple days, and soon she is thoroughly infatuated. As Margaery struggles with a level of adoration she is not used to feeling, she and Sansa get to know one another. Meanwhile, Margaery's brother Loras has been talking about his new girlfriend, who Margaery has yet to meet. When Margaery finds out who it is, however, things get a lot more complicated.</p><p>Modern/college au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The girl sat with her legs crossed under her desk, one shapely calf draped over the other, her toes, encased in black flats, brushing the floor. Margaery had noticed her immediately, noticed the waves of ginger hair that grazed her sharp jawline and came to rest softly on the pale flesh revealed by her wide boatneck collar. She had noticed how the girl sat—with back straight and neck bent, and the half-closed eyelids over eyes which seemed to view the world with a sort of thoughtful aloofness, both shy and haughty.

Margaery was never one to be bashful or coy, so she had sat right behind the girl and stared at her autumn-leaf hair and the outline of her shoulder blades through the thin white cotton of her t-shirt as the professor explained the syllabus for their Introduction to Medieval Europe class.

When the class ended, the girl swept her notebook and pencils into her messenger bag. She moved with a kind of hurried grace, and her hands were deft, but not so deft that one of the pencils didn’t roll down the gentle slope of the desk to land soundlessly on the rough institutional carpet in front of Margaery’s feet. Margaery picked up the pencil, and looked straight into the girl’s eyes as she deposited it in her open palm. She prided herself on being unabashed and unapologetic in all her interactions, and she let her eyes linger on the girl’s as she withdrew her hand. The girl stared back into Margaery’s eyes for a moment, then shifted her gaze to the carpet.

“Thanks,” she said, and her voice was just like her smile, just like her half-lidded eyes and her graceful posture: understated but unfaltering.

“What’s your name?” asked Margaery.

“Sansa. What’s yours?”

“I’m Margaery.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Sansa, with a somewhat concerned glance toward the door. “I’ve… um, I’ve got to go now actually, but thanks. Thank you.”

Margaery gave Sansa her best smile, the one she knew creased her face and curled her lips in just the right way. “See you on Thursday.”

Sansa nodded and smiled softly, and Margaery wondered if she had imagined the soft flush in her cheeks or the anticipation in her smile.

 

Margaery was not sentimental. She did not fall prey to infatuation. She maintained an ever-present exoskeleton of strategic niceties and kept her distance. But as Margaery walked to her next class, her mind was full of Sansa’s waves of red hair, her smile, her voice, her soft aloofness. Normally, as Margaery walked from class to class, she would examine the faces she passed. She liked to make eye contact with people, liked to see how much she could find out about them by looking at their faces, the way they walked, whether they noticed Margaery’s eyes lingering on their face, and how they reacted if they did.

But now, as Margaery walked, squinting in the brightness of the late-summer sun, her head spun with Sansa.

Margaery had thought that maybe the two days that would pass before she would see Sansa again would help, that the hours would wash her from Margaery’s mind, but as Margaery ate dinner that evening, nothing had changed. Her friends’ voices swam unheard in the space around her ears as Sansa’s face danced in front of her eyes.

That night, Margaery sat in her living room, flipping through a magazine. She didn’t notice Catherine, one of her roommates, enter the room until she plopped down on the couch next to Margaery.

“Hey,” said Catherine, in a tone Margaery recognized as mock-flippancy. “What’s going on?”

“What does it look like?” Margaery asked, not unkindly. “I’m reading a magazine.”

“You know what I mean.” Catherine looked pointedly at her.

Margaery looked down at the glossiness of the magazine pages, then, after a few long seconds, fixed her gaze back on Catherine. She felt the corner of her mouth curling into an involuntary smile as she said, “There’s a girl.”

 

Thursday came much too slowly, and Margaery’s discomfort only grew. She had been with plenty of girls, and they had all been beautiful, but none of them had taken residence in the empty spaces in Margaery’s mind like Sansa had. None of them had made Margaery smile involuntarily to herself like Sansa had.

There was a crack in Margaery’s exoskeleton, and Sansa had put it there.

 

When Thursday finally did come, Margaery walked into Introduction to Medieval Europe five minutes early only to glimpse Sansa’s vibrant hair across the half-filled classroom. Her heart fluttered earthshatteringly, but she didn’t let her slight smile or her purposeful stride falter, and she sat down in the desk behind Sansa.

Sansa twisted in her seat and caught Margaery’s eye as she sat down.

“Hey there. It was Sansa, right?” asked Margaery, even though the past two days had etched the name so deeply into her brain that it may as well have been her own.

“Right. And you’re Margaery?”

“Right.” Margaery leaned down and rifled through her backpack for her notebook so she would have a moment to compose herself, then said, “Hey, so, Sansa? Maybe this is just me, but I usually like to have at least one friend in each class, and I haven’t exactly talked to anyone else in here. Would you want to get lunch sometime? Exchange our contact information? I find it’s pretty useful if you miss class or don’t understand the assignment or just want a study partner.” It was only a half-truth, but Margaery only ever told whole truths if she had a good reason.

Sansa looked back at her, and for a moment Margaery was afraid she would decline, but then a slow smile crept onto her pink lips. “That sounds great, actually. I’d love to.”

They planned for Saturday afternoon, and as their professor started class in a voice that resonated off of the classroom’s back wall, Margaery felt a thrill of happiness that threatened to push and surge and spill up her throat from the warm place in her chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Almost too soon, Margaery stood in front of a single glass door in a red brick building. She loved this café because the inside always seemed to be bathed in light. During the day, sunlight, or even the watery cloudy half-light of today, came through the glass picture window to shine on the cream-colored walls and the light wood floors, glinting off of the glass vases of flowers placed in the middle of every square wooden table. At night, a warm orangeness emanated from the lamps that hung from the ceiling to color the walls and the wood of the table and floors golden._   
> _She was five minutes early, but Sansa was already there. She spotted her immediately despite the crowded tables. Sansa was staring vaguely at the menu with her chin propped on her hand, her pale shoulders bare except for the light blue straps of her sundress. She looked up when she heard the door open. When she made eye contact with Margaery, her face registered a look of slight surprise._

       It was still late August, but a chill wind cut through the thin fabric of Margaery’s shirt and raised goosebumps on her bare arms. She was on her way to meet Sansa at a café down the street from campus, and nervousness was mounting steadily in the back of her throat. The day looked stormy; the wind tossed the tree branches fitfully back and forth, and a layer of grey clouds sagged heavy over her. Margaery didn’t really mind, though. She liked storms, sometimes.  
       Almost too soon, Margaery stood in front of a single glass door in a red brick building. She loved this café because the inside always seemed to be bathed in light. During the day, sunlight, or even the watery cloudy half-light of today, came through the glass picture window to shine on the cream-colored walls and the light wood floors, glinting off of the glass vases of flowers placed in the middle of every square wooden table. At night, a warm orangeness emanated from the lamps that hung from the ceiling to color the walls and the wood of the table and floors golden.  
       Margaery was five minutes early, but Sansa was already there. She spotted her immediately despite the crowded tables. Sansa was staring vaguely at the menu with her chin propped on her hand, her pale shoulders bare except for the light blue straps of her sundress. She looked up when she heard the door open. When she made eye contact with Margaery, her face registered a look of slight surprise.  
       Margaery made her way through the busy café to their table, and sat down in the chair across from Sansa, smiling warmly at her.  
       “I, uh, I came straight from seeing my father off at the airport. There wasn’t really enough time to go home, so I just came a bit early.” Margaery heard a slight stammer in Sansa’s voice, and saw the gentle flush that rose in her cheeks. She was embarrassed at having arrived early.  
       Margaery didn’t try to hide her smile as she turned to hang her purse on the back of her chair. “Where is your father going?” she asked amicably.  
       “China,” answered Sansa. “For work.”  
       “What does he do?”  
       "He’s an ambassador," Sansa answered. "He travels a lot, actually.”  
       “Oh, an ambassador? Wow, that’s so interesting. My father’s just an accountant.”  
       Sansa looked down at her menu, and then back up at Margaery, smiling uncertainly. “Isn’t the stability nice, though? I get nervous with my father travelling so much.” She shook her head slightly, and Margaery couldn’t help but notice the subtle shift of her hair. “Why am I even talking about this?” Sansa laughed. “I don’t think you invited me to lunch so we could spend the whole time talking about our fathers.”  
       “No, I must say I didn’t.” Margaery paused, shifting her eyes to meet Sansa’s. “Although I’m happy to talk about whatever you want to.” She let one corner of her mouth rise in a smirk.  
       Sansa looked at Margaery, clearly unsure of what to say. “Oh, I…” she trailed off uncertainly.  
       “Nevermind,” Margaery gestured to the menus on the table in front of them. “I guess lunch is why we’re here, isn’t it?”  
       “Yeah, I guess so.”

       Forty minutes later, the waiter had returned with two glasses of lemonade, a Caesar salad for Margaery, and a plate of pasta for Sansa, and Sansa and Margaery knew each other’s major, hometown, and feelings and conjectures about their Introduction to Medieval Europe class.  
       “Professor Mordane is nice enough,” Sansa was saying. “But she’s just so scatterbrained.”  
       “I _know_ ,” Margaery said, as soon as she finished chewing the bite of salad in her mouth. “And her _tangents_. I’m starting to wonder if we’ll actually learn anything at all.”  
       “Right?” Sansa twirled pasta around her fork as she spoke. “She seems like the kind of professor that would lose your papers and then claim you’d never turned them in.”  
       Margaery rolled her eyes. “Oh god she does. And her lectures haven’t been very helpful. She just gets so off track. Oh you’re a history major though. I guess you probably already know all of this?”  
       “History and English, yeah. I don’t really, though. My focus is mostly on nineteenth-century Europe.”  
       “An elegant time.” Margaery stabbed a piece of lettuce with her fork before lifting her eyes to Sansa’s face again. “That seems fitting.”  
       The same pretty flush that Margaery had noticed several times before crept back up into Sansa’s cheeks. “I uh… what do you mean?”  
       Margaery smiled down at her salad. She wouldn’t let on, but she was worried she had embarrassed Sansa. “Just that you’re very elegant,” she said, with a slight laugh. “Almost like a nineteenth-century lady yourself.”  
       The flush was clearly visible in Sansa’s cheeks now. “Oh, um, thank you.” Sansa stuffed a bite of pasta into her mouth with clearly-visible haste.  
       “I _am_ sorry,” Margaery said, although she kept her voice light and playful. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you. Sometimes I tend to say what I think a little too much.”  
       “Oh! Oh, no, you didn’t embarrass me! It was a very nice compliment.” Sansa’s smile was reassuring, if still rather flustered.

       After the waiter had taken away their empty plates and brought two checks in shiny black leather cases, and Margaery had signed her receipt, slipped her credit card into the top of the case, and tucked a few dollars under the saucer in the middle of the table for a tip, she met Sansa’s eyes and said offhandedly, “I don’t know if you’re busy now, but we do have that quiz on Monday. We could go study for it a bit, if you’d like? Get a jump on that whole ‘study partners’ thing?”  
       “That sounds great.”  
       When Margaery had her credit card back and Sansa her change, they left the café and walked the ten minutes to Sansa’s apartment. “My roommate works on Saturdays,” Sansa had explained, as they tried to decide where to study. “So we should be able to study in peace.”  
       “That would be wonderful,” Margaery had admitted. “I live with five other girls, so it’s rarely quiet.”

       They soon arrived at Sansa’s building, a long, two-story brick affair with a row of black doors, three concrete steps leading up to a narrow stoop in front of each. The inside of Sansa’s apartment was simply decorated, but as distinctly elegant as Sansa herself. The front door opened into a small living room, but the white walls and light wood floor, along with the two windows on one wall with their sheer pink curtains drawn to the sides to let the light in, made the room look more spacious than it was. Sansa (or her roommate) had hung stringed lights along each of the walls, near the top where they met the ceiling. The room was furnished with a light cream-colored couch and two matching chairs, a bookcase, and a white coffee table and TV stand. On the wall behind the couch was a collage of artfully-arranged photographs, but Margaery was too far away to see them clearly. Through a doorway to her left, she could see a glimpse of Sansa’s kitchen, and opposite her, a darkened hallway led away from the living room.  
      “Wow, Sansa,” Margaery marveled at the room around her as she slid off her flats. “Your apartment is beautiful.”  
      “Oh,” Sansa said, with a quiet laugh. “Thank you. Jeyne and I both like to keep things neat.”  
      “And seem to have a penchant for decorating, as well.”  
       Sansa looked around too. “Well, maybe. Do you want anything to drink? Jeyne made some iced tea yesterday.”  
       “Oh I’d love some, if you don’t mind.”  
       “Of course not.”  
       While Sansa was in the kitchen getting their tea, Margaery wandered over to the collage of photographs on the wall above the couch. The photographs were of several different people. Some of them Margaery felt certain were of Sansa and her family, but most featured Sansa and a girl with dark skin, sleek black hair, and a strikingly symmetrical face. Margaery turned around when she heard Sansa step back into the room.  
       Sansa set two glasses of pale green iced tea on the coffee table, then stood up and smiled at Margaery. “Do you like our collage?”  
       “It’s lovely. Would I be correct in guessing that this is Jeyne?”  
       “Yep, that’s her.”  
       “She’s beautiful. I’d love to meet her sometime.”  
       “Well, if we study here on a regular basis, I’m sure you will. Oh, uh, it’s peppermint tea. I hope that’s okay.”  
       “It’s great! I actually love peppermint tea. My grandmother used to make it for me when I was a kid. I’ve never had it iced, though.”  
       Sansa smiled. “Iced peppermint tea is Jeyne’s favorite. She makes it all the time. Well, should we study, then? I just need to get my things from my room.” She started toward the hallway, then paused. “Do you have any of your things to study with? I didn’t even think about it.”  
       Margaery gestured to her sizeable white purse, sitting near the door by her shoes. “I brought some things just in case.”  
       “Oh, great. I’ll just go get mine then.”

       They had just begun studying, sitting cross-legged on the couch with their notebooks spread between them, when Margaery’s phone rang.  
       “Oh gosh I’m sorry.” She fished the phone out of her pursed and glanced at the screen. “It’s my brother. Mind if I take it?”  
       “No, not at all,” Sansa said.  
       Margaery swiped to answer the phone, standing up as she did and walking across the room so as not to bother Sansa. “Hi, Loras.”  
       “Margaery. Are you busy?”  
       “Kind of. I’m studying with a friend, but I can talk for a minute.”  
       “Oh,” said Loras. “I won’t keep you then. I just wanted to see if you’re free sometime this week for dinner. There’s, uh, someone I’d like you to meet.”  
       “Someone?” Loras’s pronouncement had piqued Margaery’s interest. “What kind of someone?”  
       “I have a new girlfriend.”  
       “You do? I’d love to meet her. Are you free Wednesday?”  
       “Wednesday works for me,” Loras said. “Want to go to Rosie’s?”  
       “Of course.” Rosie’s was an Italian restaurant downtown, and one of Margaery’s favorites. “I’d better get back to studying, though. See you then.”  
       Margaery hung up, deposited her phone back into her purse, and sat back down on the couch. “Sorry about that. It was my brother. Apparently he has a new girlfriend and wants me to meet her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for taking so long to update! Blame a busy school semester. The next chapter should be up much more quickly.
> 
> As with the first chapter, I promise that I'm not erasing Loras's sexuality. No spoilers, but it will be explained later.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Margaery had been sitting for about six minutes, eyes shifting between the glass double doors at the front of the restaurant and the middle-aged couple who sat a few tables in front of her, engaged in an intense, but not heated, discussion, when the doors opened and she recognized Loras’s shoulder-length blonde curls and delicate manner from across the restaurant._
> 
> _Margaery had just raised her hand to wave when Loras stepped aside to approach the host’s podium, and Margaery saw who was behind him._

That Tuesday after class, Margaery invited Sansa to get coffee. She agreed willingly, and they walked together to the coffee shop in the university library. Sansa ordered a vanilla latte and Margaery a cup of hot green tea, and they sat together at a small, round metal table in the corner next to the window.  
  
Margaery surveyed the girl sitting across from her, watched her fingers curl around the white cardboard cup. She rested her elbows, clad in a thin white cardigan, on the table, and held the cup up to her face with both hands, blowing gently across the top to cool it.  
  
“Is your semester going well?” Sansa asked.  
  
Margaery was startled despite herself. Sansa had seemed happy enough to spend time with her, but until now it had always seemed to be Margaery who had instigated interactions and conversations. “Yeah, it’s been pretty good,” Margaery answered. “I like most of my classes, except I’m taking an economics class which is promising to be hellish. What about you?”  
  
“Mine’s going really well, actually,” Sansa set her latte back on the table, still untasted. Her lips pulled into a smile as she spoke, an aura of excitement seeming to emanate quietly from her. “I’m working with a professor researching Elizabeth Yates, which has been really great. My classes are good too.”  
  
“Wow,” Margaery’s genuine enthusiasm startled even her. She had only known Sansa for a couple of weeks, but her seemingly endless supply of talent, intelligence, and drive kept surprising Margaery at every turn. “That’s so interesting. I’m really glad things are going well.”  
  
Sansa brought her cup back up to her mouth and took a sip. Margaery thought she saw a light flush coloring the other girl’s cheeks, but maybe it was just the warm drink. “Thanks,” Sansa answered quietly, still holding her cup up to her mouth.

  


Rosie’s was ten minutes away by car, near Loras’s office in the city center, so on Wednesday evening Margaery started up the white Honda Civic that usually sat undriven on the street in front of her house. As Margaery navigated the familiar streets of the city she had lived in for most of her life, she filled the time she didn’t spend wondering what Loras’s girlfriend would be like glancing across the street at the backed-up traffic going in the opposite direction and feeling grateful that she was driving into the city, rather than out of it. When she got to the restaurant, Loras and his girlfriend hadn’t arrived yet, so she had the host lead her to a table for three, ordered a glass of white wine, and looked around while she waited. Margaery was actually grateful that her brother and his girlfriend were late—she liked to gauge her surroundings before she had to perform in them, and although she had been to Rosie’s many times before, it had been a while. Besides, restaurants always felt a little different each time she went—the people were different, and therefore so was the ambient noise that was other customers’ conversations.  
  
Rosie’s was well-decorated and looked more expensive than it was. Margaery was seated at a cast-iron and wood table near the exposed brick wall. A warm light shone down on her from behind the half-sphere of orange glass that hung above her table. A similar lamp lit every table, as well as the red leather booths that lined two of the walls.  
  
Margaery had chosen the seat facing the door—she wanted to see Loras and his girlfriend come in, to get as much of a sense of the girl as she could before interacting with her. She had been sitting for about six minutes, eyes shifting between the glass double doors at the front of the restaurant and the middle-aged couple who sat a few tables in front of her, engaged in an intense, but not heated, discussion, when the doors opened and she recognized Loras’s shoulder-length blonde curls and delicate manner from across the restaurant.  
  
Margaery had just raised her hand to wave when Loras stepped aside to approach the host’s podium, and Margaery saw who was behind him. Her waterfall of red hair and reserved but proud demeanor were sickeningly familiar. For a few hopeful, breathless seconds, she hoped she was wrong, but as they approached the table, following the same host who had seated Margaery, Sansa Stark’s features came into focus with a deafening sureness.  
  
“Dearest Margaery, my lovely sister!” Loras exclaimed, when he was close enough to be heard without shouting across the restaurant.  
  
Margaery stood, pushing down the dreadfully sick feeling that was beginning to knot and tear at her stomach and feigning the well-adjusted togetherness she always, despite their closeness, put on around her brother. “My dear brother!” she said, wrapping her arms around him.  
  
Loras turned to Sansa, putting a hand on the small of her back. “Margaery, this is my girlfriend Sansa.”  
  
“As it just so happens, Loras, Sansa and I already know each other.” The conspiratorial smile she found herself flashing at Sansa made her feel even worse. “How are you, Sansa?”  
  
Even then, Margaery thought she saw that same soft flush in Sansa’s cheeks, but she dismissed it. Sansa must just be taken back by the coincidence of the situation. “Hi, Margaery,” Sansa smiled sweetly at her. “I’m good. How are you?”  
  
“Fantastic.” The word tasted bitter as it pushed past her lips, but Margaery swallowed the taste and gestured graciously toward the table. “Shall we sit?”  
  
Loras sat across the table from Margaery, leaving Sansa to sit on the side adjacent to both of them. A heavy silence hung in the air, settling sticky and suffocating on Margaery’s face and making it hard for her to breathe or see or speak. Finally, when it felt as if it had been twenty minutes but had really only been four and Margaery had begun to feel as if she would never be able to speak again if she didn’t speak now, she turned to Loras and asked, in her tone of practiced, casual cheerfulness, “Have you talked to Grandmother recently? How’s the shop?”  
  
Margaery and Loras’s grandmother, Olenna, owned a florist’s shop a few blocks away from the design firm where Loras worked. Margaery, Loras, and their two other brothers, Willas and Garlan, had all worked there in high school. Olenna had opened the shop single-handedly with money she had inherited when their grandfather died. When it had first opened, Olenna had told them many times, it had been no larger than Margaery’s bedroom. Margaery knew that its name, Highgarden, had carried all the dreams of success and regality that Olenna had held for it. Now, after two extensions and decades of existence in a neighborhood that had long since undergone a very rapid gentrification, Highgarden was doing quite well, but Margaery, who had spent most of her childhood weaving through the aisles of the shop pretending that she was a great lady of the past in a royal garden until she was told to sit quietly on her stool in the corner, and every weekday afternoon of her high school years cutting flowers and spraying bouquets, felt a need to check up on it every once in a while.  
  
“I stopped in the other day after work,” Loras answered. “Although I guess I had an ulterior motive. I just had to pick up some flowers for Sansa.” Loras turned to flash a smile at Sansa, and the nervous smile she returned tore at the lining of Margaery’s stomach.  
  
“And how was the shop?” If Margaery hadn’t been so good at disguising her emotions, she was sure Loras would have heard the impatience in her voice.  
  
“Same as always. Beautiful. Kind of busy.”  
  
“And Grandmother?”  
  
“Still working in the shop every day and judging every customer who comes in. I don’t know why you’re asking. She’s exactly the same every time we see her.”  
  
Margaery forced a smile. “Touché. Anyway,” she said, turning to Sansa. “Let’s change the subject. I’m afraid that was a bit of a Tyrell-only conversation, wasn’t it?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Sansa said.  
  
“Nonsense. So, I’ve got to ask. How did you two meet?”  
  
Before either of them had time to answer, their waitress appeared and asked for their drink orders. When Margaery and Loras had both ordered and Sansa was engaged in communicating her desire for lemonade to the waitress, Margaery smiled at Loras. She couldn’t say it was entirely good-natured. Mostly, she was proud that she had been the first one to make sure Sansa didn’t feel left out.  
  
She wondered if Loras could tell.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note about Loras's sexual orientation: I do realize that he's gay in canon, and I promise I'm not just ignoring this. It will be addressed later. I don't want to spoil anything by giving too many details, but I wanted to make a quick note because it'll be a few chapters before it's addressed.


End file.
